Karnataka polls: Sriramulu has party & friends, but fun is a casualty

Transport Minister B Sriramulu’s deleted tweet can clue one into the kind of crossroads he finds himself at.

Sriramalu had asked the people of Sindhanur (Raichur) to participate in a rally organised by his mentor and founder of the new Kalyana Rajya Pragati Paksha (KRPP) Gali Janardhana Reddy. The tweet, which created quite a stir, was deleted within an hour.

The Ballari leader is caught between his party and friends. To his displeasure, both sides remain unrelenting in their opposition to each other. The ensuing election is a test of the calibre and loyalty of Sriramulu, the BJP’s most prominent ST face.

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Close aides of Sriramulu tell DH that the leader, who holds the distinction of not being defeated in Ballari district, is not pleased with the way the party has treated him over the last five years.

From being chosen to contest against then chief minister Siddaramiah in the 2018 Assembly elections to his ‘unceremonious’ removal as health minister during the peak of Covid-19 first wave, Sriramulu’s political career has seen many twists and turns.

Some of the developments have hurt him deeply, his aides say. Sriramulu was also projected as a deputy chief minister during the 2018 polls, a position he did not get.

Party insiders say that Union Home Minister Amit Shah has set Sriramulu a target of winning 28-35 out of the 40 seats in the Kalyana Karnataka (KK) region. For Sriramalu, this would mean taking on Reddy, whose party is planning to field candidates in 30 seats in the region.

BJP leaders claim that Sriramulu has exited Reddy’s shadow and established himself as a strong ST leader.

Nagendra factor

But political pundits point out that Sriramulu has been going soft against Reddy and MLA B Nagendra, a close friend who will be his opponent from Congress in Bellary Rural constituency.

Observers say that Reddy and Sriramulu are ‘complementary and supplementary’ to each other.

Loyalty on test

“BJP might have placed Sriramulu in the party’s core committee and given him the task of ensuring a big win in the KK region. But at the same time, the party is also testing his loyalty by asking him to take on Reddy and Nagendra,” said a close aide of Sriramulu.

Diminishing base

Experts say Sriramalu may not be in the clear as the law of diminishing marginal utility — the more a service is consumed, the lesser satisfaction it provides — may kick in.

In 2013, as founder president of BSR Congress, Sriramalu garnered 3 per cent of the total votes polled in the state and won four seats in Ballari, Chitradurga and Belagavi districts.

In the 2018 elections, he put up a tough fight as a BJP candidate against Siddaramaiah in Badami, emerging as a pan-Karnataka leader. However, this time around, party sources say, Sriramulu is satisfied with a safe seat within Ballari.

However, BJP General Secretary Mahesh Tenginkai says Sriramulu continues to be one of BJP’s top leaders with mass appeal across the state. “There’s no question of sidelining him. Being the party’s ST face, he will be our star campaigner,” he said.